Sister Carrie (Barnes & Noble Classics S - Theodore Dreiser [3]
1884 Philosopher Herbert Spencer, who will be a great influence for Dreiser in later years, publishes The Man Versus the State, in which he coins the term “survival of the fittest.”
1886 The American Federation of Labor, an association of trade unions, is founded.
1887 Theodore leaves Warsaw, Indiana, where his family is living, for Chicago. He works at such jobs as dishwasher and hardware store clerk.
1889 With the aid of a former teacher, Theodore enrolls for one undistinguished year at Indiana University in Bloomington. Mark Twain publishes A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington are admitted to the Union. Industrialist Andrew Carnegie’s “The Gospel of Wealth” appears, encouraging the rich to use their money for the improvement of mankind.
1892 Dreiser becomes a reporter for the Chicago Globe and a reporter and drama critic for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. He specializes in human-interest stories and uses dialogue and character sketches in many of his pieces.
1893 The Panic of 1893 creates a national economic sinkhole; labor unrest follows, and unemployment will remain at 10 percent for more than five years.
1894 Dreiser moves to New York City, where he becomes the editor of Ev‘ry Month, a music magazine whose subtitle he modifies to An Illustrated Magazine of Literature and Popular Music. With this platform, Dreiser sets forth ideas about social inequalities, literature, and philosophy.
1895 Dreiser begins contributing articles to such magazines as McClure’s and Cosmopolitan. H. G. Wells publishes The Time Machine.
1897 Dreiser leaves Ev’ry Month to earn a living solely from freelance writing. Among the topics he covers are: the plight of workers and chain-gang prisoners, the possibility of life on Mars, and the artistry of photographer Alfred Stieglitz; he publishes interviews with Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie.
1898 Dreiser marries Sara Osbourne White, a Missouri school-teacher. Henry James publishes The Turn of the Screw.
1899 Writer Arthur Henry, a friend of the Dreisers, encourages Dreiser to begin writing his first novel, Sister Carrie, which he bases on the experience of Emma, one of his sisters. Thorstein Veblen publishes The Theory of the Leisure Class, introducing the concept of “conspicuous consumption.” American novelist Ernest Hemingway is born. In Chicago, Jane Addams and Ellen Starr found Hull House, which aims to improve social conditions for immigrants and other needy people.
1900 Sister Carrie is published, launching Dreiser’s career as a novelist. Reviews are mixed; some critics see genius in its realism and characterization, while others complain that the story is too depressing and the style tedious. It does not sell well. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche dies. Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams is published.
1901 Sister Carrie is published in England to popular and critical acclaim; the London Daily Mail notes, “At last a really strong novel has come from America.” Andrew Carnegie sells the Carnegie Steel Company to J. P. Morgan for $480 million and dedicates his life to philanthropy.
1902 A new flagship Macy’s department store, the self-proclaimed “largest store on earth”—with nine stories, thirty-three elevators, four escalators, and a pneumatic tube system—opens in Herald Square in Manhattan.
1903 Suicidal, regretful over his marriage, and blocked in the writing of Jennie Gerhardt, his second novel, Dreiser enters a sanatorium. Henry James’s The Ambassadors and Jack London’s The Call of the Wild are published.
1906 Dreiser takes a position as managing editor of Broadway Magazine. Best-selling author O. Henry publishes The Four Million, and Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle.
1907 Dreiser becomes editor-in-chief for Butterick Publications. Oklahoma is admitted to the Union. Sister Carrie is reissued to greater critical and popular acclaim than when it first appeared. Dreiser and journalist and social critic H. L. Mencken, who will champion Dreiser